Eternal Gratitude
by Indigo2831
Summary: Short tag to "Death's Door."  When the doctor came out to inform him that Bobby had died, Sam laughed.


I had a great idea in mind for a tag to the fantastic episode, "Death's Door." Sadly, I haven't been able to write it. As embarrassing and it may be, it's too emotional. I still want to write it and as motivation, I decided to post this as inspiration. It works perfectly fine as a tag all on its own. But there may be more in the near future. Please let me know what you think!

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><p><strong>Eternal Gratitude<strong>

When the doctor came out to inform him that Bobby had died, Sam laughed.

It was a mirthless, black chuckle of horrible disbelief, but it was a laugh nonetheless. He pushed passed the doctor and into the trauma room, where the nurses were already dislodging the tubes and IVs. A bottle blonde in garish aqua scrubs turned to Sam and froze, her eyes softened into as much pity as their professionalism would allow. She stepped back and offered him time, and he wanted to laugh again, because there wasn't any.

Bobby smelled distinctly of blood and iodine and gunpowder, not like the woodsy scent that normally emanated from his flannels and puffy vests. He was more than pale. An ashen gray pallor had replaced the snow whiteness of his skin, making Bobby's unkempt beard seem darker and harsh. Sam sat down on the stool and grabbed his hand. It was still warm just like it had been twenty minutes earlier.

When his heart was still beating.

He hadn't known what to say then, when Bobby stunned them all and woke up, but now his mind and aching heart was full of everything that hadn't come to him in those last moments. "Thank you for loving me," Sam blurted in a gravelly whisper, "when nobody in their right mind would've." He paused, and tossed out something else. "I'll remember everything you taught me." And one more thing, "you were a great dad, Bobby. I wouldn't have made it w-without you."

And felt it then, the cold puckering of his skin, the hairs sliding erect on the nape of his neck. Something scarred and broken in Sam erupted with emotional brutality, and he clutched that still-warm hand. "_Don't even think about it_," he growled in Bobby's ear. "You go to Heaven as fast as you can. Find your w-wife and be…at peace. Me and D-Dean…we'll be all right," his voice cracked at the end as tears choked him.

He was lying, and he knew it.

Sam stood up, scratching at the stray flecks of the blood on the pillow and refusing to let his eyes roam to the messy bandages and the wires trialing from a monitor inserted Bobby's head. The old hunter finally looked serene, and somehow far younger than he ever appeared when he was alive. Sam wanted to say something else, something profound and important.

But he realized he already had. "Thanks for everything. But it's time for you to go."

The bottle blonde was standing outside the room, wringing her hands together with tension. She glanced up at him with troubled eyes. Sam scrubbed at his face. "Are there forms or something?"

"Um…" she bit her lip and then turned slightly, gazing down the hall.

Sam followed her gaze and found his brother destroying every piece of furniture in the small alcove of a waiting room with a graceful violence normally reserved for the monsters who liked to throttle and torture his little brother. Patients and their families pressed anxiously against the wall, out of the kill zone. His entire body shuddered with cold, hollow grief. Sam was unspeakably tired of holding it together. He'd spent the last few days beating back the terror that licked at his back of his throat like hellfire and ignoring the devilish voices in his head. Sam glanced back to the curtained off room where Bobby's body lay and the promise he made still stood. A few more tears dripped down his cheeks, but he nodded, and forced himself together out of spite and reverence.

He stalked towards the conference room, he shot a lethal glare of warning at approaching security and approached Dean quickly. He yanked the table leg out of Dean's arm on an upswing with only the strength needed to free it, and easily dodged the resulting punch thrown. Dean was crying, but it was soundless and desperate and mired with unfettered pain. Sam pulled his brother too him, and hugged him with everything he had.

Like he was all he had left.


End file.
